CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 6.1

WITH Season 7 currently airing on Channel 5 and Season 6, Volume 1 now available on DVD, there’s no mistaking CSI: Crime Scene Investigation‘s continuing hold on viewers’ imagination.

The first of the three franchises, the Las Vegas-based CSI: Crime Scene Investigation broke new ground when it first appeared on screens in the year 2000. Described more as a ‘howdunnit’ (as opposed to a simple ‘whodunnit’), it went to the very heart of crime – sometimes quite literally so – as the team of CSIs working the ‘graveyard’ shift collected and examined forensic evidence.

And although the team, led by the enigmatic Gil Grissom (William Petersen), has become as familiar to fans as real acquaintances, we still know very little about their personal lives. It’s true – we’re given tantalizing glimpses but no more than that, which leads me to suspect it’s a clever ploy on the part of the show’s producer to keep us watching.

Not that it really needs it – the storylines can quite easily stand alone (I could go so far as to say they stand head and shoulders above a great deal that finds its way onto screens) with their clever mix of drama and intrigue, frequently involving hard-hitting subjects.

Season 6 then, begins with the team reunited – you may remember they were split up in Season 5, in an episode entitled Mea Culpa because, according to Ecklie (Marc Vann), Grissom’s ability to supervise had come into question.

We also learn in the very first episode that Warrick (Gary Dourdan) got married – prompted, in part, by Nick’s ordeal in Season 5’s concluding episode Grave Danger and the realization that life is short, “almost shorter than we want to ever believe.” His new marital status leaves Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) stunned!

As for his wife, Tina (Meta Golding), we eventually get to ‘meet’ her in Episode 4, Shooting Stars, which deals with a mass suicide by members of a small cult.

There is also palpable friction between Sara (Jorja Fox) and Sofia (Louise Lombard) – and we all know why, don’t we? – and it’s particularly noticeable in what is possibly the season’s most compelling episode(s), the two-parter A Bullet Runs Through It.

Here, we see an officer killed by ‘friendly fire’ – as it turns out, by either Sofia or Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) and both Guilfoyle and Lombard are superb as the guilt-ridden detectives endeavouring to come to terms with the consequences of their actions during a shoot-out. It continues to the final tense frame when the guilty party is confronted by the dead officer’s wife.

And in Daddy’s Little Girl, Nick (George Eads) comes closer to finding the truth about his kidnapping – another episode with considerable emotional impact.

In a nutshell, Season 6, Volume 1 has everything (and more) that we’ve come to expect from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, so definitely a DVD for every connoisseur of first class drama.